Kiliya or Chilia (in Ukrainian: Кілія ; in Russian: Килия ; in Rumanian: Chilia Nouă ) is an industrial town of 23.000 inhabitants and a port of the south-east of the Ukraine, located in the Delta of the Danube in the Oblast d' Odessa - in the area Bessarabia of the Boudjak. It gave its name to the Danubian arm of Chilia, which separates it from Chilia Veche in Romania.

History

On southern bank of the arm of Chilia, Chilia Veche or Old Chilia , village populated of Lipovènes (in Ukrainian: Stara Kiliya ) rises on the ruins of a port with grains of the Byzantine Empire named Lykostomo (" the mouth of the loups" in Greek). The etymology of Kiliya/Chilia comes from kellia (attics, in Greek). The name is mentioned for the first time in 1241 in the work of the Persan chronicler Aldine Rashid.

From 1315 Licostomo becomes a counter and a fortress of the Republic of Genoa which then has many others of them on bottom the Danube and all around the Black Sea, from where it imports grains, skins, wood, spices and silk trade (the Silk route ends in the Black Sea). The despotat of Dobrogée (Dobroudja) seizes some in 1366, while in face, on northern bank, the Tatars (until 1328) then the Principality of Valachie (until 1418) and finally that of Moldavie (of 1418 to 1484) trade by some quays out of wooden.

It is at the time Moldavian that the prince Etienne Large the builds there Chilia Nouă or Nouvelle Chilia (in Ukrainian Kiliya ), because of the Ottoman Empire which had conquered and destroyed old Chilia in 1422. Alas for Moldavie, Chilia Nouă is also conquered by the Othomans in 1484. The Turks keep it until in 1790, date where it is taken by the Russian general Goudovitch. Returned to the Othomans, it is finally annexed by the Russian Empire in 1812, but is not any more whereas the shade of itself, with less than 3000 inhabitants.

After bombardbeing bombarded by the British fleet free in July 1854, Moldavie recovers it in conclusion of the Crimean War to the Traité of Paris. In 1856, the union between Moldavie and Valachie form the Romania. In 1878, Chilia Nouă is transferred again to Russia with Boudjak. Between 1918 and 1940, it returns to Romania, then is occupied by the Soviet Union and attached in 1940 to the Soviet socialist République of Ukraine (it was briefly taken again by Romania of 1941 with 1944, during the Second world war).

Under the Soviet mode, it is industrialized, become a large port and its very variegated population initially is homogenized: there remain only Russian and Ukrainian . In 1991, and remains in the Ukraine after the end of the USSR. Romania and the République of Moldavie gave up any claim on this area.